Knife Edge Consequences
by dragonwriter24cmf
Summary: Chloe visits Lucifer, and discovers Azreal's blade. Which leads to a discussion. And a revelation. Because the blade isn't the only thing Lucifer's been keeping from her. What exactly is a cop supposed to do, when she discovers her friend has hijacked evidence, and committed fratricide? Especially when he did it for her?


**Knife Edge Consequence**

She hadn't meant to snoop. Really. But Lucifer was doing...something, and she'd come up to talk to him. And, in the absence of the loft's annoying occupant, she'd just been looking around.

The piano had drawn her attention. It was a beautiful instrument, well maintained like all of his possessions, but also clearly well used and well loved. She thought he probably never used the couch for anything other than make out sessions and guests, but the piano – that was something personal, something valuable to Lucifer.

She traced her fingers over the cool wood, well polished, and the gleaming ivory and black keys. Then to the seat, butter-soft leather that actually had an imprint of his seat from many hours of use. She was bending down for a closer look when her attention was caught by a hinge. A hinge in the seat. Why would there be a hinge in the seat?

Too curious to stop, even as a twinge of guilt suggested she was prying more than she should, she flipped the seat up. It proved to be hollow, the area beneath the seat formed into a compartment. Most of what was in there appeared to be sheet music, interesting because she'd never seen Lucifer use actual sheet music when he played. But just before she dropped the lid, she spotted something else. A gleam of silver. She nudged a sheet of music aside to get a better look.

Hidden in the seat compartment was a long, thin knife. Gleaming silver from tip to hilt, it was several inches long, a straight blade going down to a plain hilt, like a small sword. Something about it made her uneasy, but she couldn't place what.

"Detective? Something got your...oh, you found my guilty pleasure. One of them, at any rate." Chloe jumped as Lucifer appeared beside her with soundless steps and a wide grin. "Sometimes I dabble in..."

"Lucifer, what's this?" She cut him off before he could really get started with a monologue, or worse, another attempt at a pick up line. "This knife..."

Lucifer's expression changed so fast she had to blink to register it. The cocky smile disappeared like it had never existed, the dark eyes going cold and solemn and expressionless. "Knife? Oh, yes, that knife. Well, let's just say it's something I'm keeping safe for now, shall we?" He gave her a grin, but it was a bare shadow of his usual smile.

He was only that evasive when something important was going on. She knew that. She stepped around him and reached to pick up the blade.

Lucifer moved fast, faster than she would have expected. His hand shot out and intercepted hers, settling in an unbreakable grip around her wrist. The other hand took the knife from the compartment with careful movements. "Wouldn't handle that if I were you, Detective. It's sharp."

So was the smile he was giving her, dark with an edge of fear and danger that she'd learned was a warning that something was wrong with him. She swallowed hard. "I can handle knives. Why are you being so defensive about that one?" She took a closer look at it.

He held it like he'd been born with a blade in his hand. Easy and careful, fingers folded around the hilt like it had always been there. She stared at it, and felt a nasty jolt as she realized what had been bothering her. "Lucifer, that knife..."

"Yes. It's my sister's."

"It looks like the knife that disappeared from that multiple stabbing homicide case we had."

Lucifer looked down, as if he'd honestly forgotten what it looked like in the last five seconds. "Suppose it does at that."

Chloe looked up into his dark eyes. He was prevaricating, but he never lied to her. He swore on that. "Lucifer...is that the knife from the crime scene? The murder weapon?"

Lucifer winced at the direct question, and she knew the answer before he spoke. "It appears you've caught me, Detective."

Anger roared up in her. She'd looked for that knife for days. "You stole evidence from a crime scene!"

"Not stealing, technically. As I said, it's my sister's."

"So your sister was involved, and you're covering for her."

"No. Not in the least. Far as I know Azrael wasn't anywhere near. Though, given Azrael's talents. But no. Fairly certain she wasn't involved. Not directly at any rate."

She hated the way he was giving her the runaround, giving information without telling her anything. "Then why was her blade here?"

"My brother borrowed it, hadn't had a chance to return it yet."

She frowned. "Amenadiel?"

"Wrong brother. I have several. No, this was Uriel."

"So this Uriel was involved in the murders."

Something flared deep in his eyes and blossomed into pain. "Not possible, Detective."

"Why?"

"Because Uriel is dead. Very dead. Died over a week before that little stabbing spree."

She was tired of trying to get answers, when she wasn't even sure what questions to ask. He was telling the truth, but if ever a man was born to tell the truth and reveal absolutely nothing, it was Lucifer. She set a hand on her gun. "Lucifer, you have 10 seconds to tell me the whole story, or I'm going to arrest you for misappropriating evidence, obstruction of a police investigation, and possibly aiding and abetting. And that knife is all the evidence I'll need to make sure you spend a lot of time in jail."

Pain and rage filled his dark eyes, changing the set of his jaw. Lucifer stepped froward, his posture threatening. She made herself stand still and face him. "Detective."

"5 seconds."

His lip curled in a snarl. "The whole story, Detective?" Something ugly settled in his expression, making her gut clench.

She knew that dark, borderline insane look. That was the look he wore before he went crazy. It meant he was about to be homicidal, suicidal, or both. It was the look he'd had before going after Jimmy. After the priest had died. The look that had made her shoot him once, almost on instinct.

"The whole story?" The dark smile lit his face, making him look as devilish as he always claimed to be. "Well, if you insist..."

He gestured. "A long time ago, Mummy Dearest and Dear Old Dad had a fight. And at the end, Dad threw Mum into Hell with me. But as luck would have it, during that fun little fracas with Malcolm Graham, Mum managed to break out, as it were, and come here. She found me, asked me to help her out. All well and good, except Dad had already asked me to make sure she was taken care of in quite a different manner."

Chloe felt her stomach knot. She'd already known his father wasn't the best, or at least that they had a rough relationship. "He wanted you to..."

"Send her back to Hell. Put her back in her cell, in your terms. I considered it, declined and decided Mummy dearest would be better served doing her time here, around you humans. She doesn't like humans much, Mum doesn't." His smile was nearly as sharp as the blade in his hand.

"Thing is, Uriel didn't quite agree with my approach. He turned up with an ultimatum of sorts. Deliver Mum to him, or else."

"Or else he'd punish you."

"Oh, hardly that. Uriel was a little more...vicious, one might say."

Dread knotted her shoulders. "What do you mean?"

"Uriel's ultimatum was simple. I met him in a church, and he told me I could choose. Decide whether he killed Mum...or you, Detective."

Cold flooded through her, adrenaline surging in her veins. "Me? Why?"

"Because you're my partner, of course. Because I like you, and you tolerate me. Believe it or not, Detective, it was an effective threat." There was a bitter, painful edge to his words.

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"Because you would never have believed me. And even if you had...you've noted my special little talent, yes?"

"Your thing with the...desires?"

"Yes, that. Well, Uriel's talent is – was I should say - patterns. Seeing and manipulating them, to be exact. You'd never see him coming."

"You don't know that."

"I do, actually. I did warn you about that accident."

"The one with the dog? I told you..."

"Yes, yes. Dog ran out in the road, just an accident. But it's the type of thing Uriel was good at. Did you trace where the dog came from, how it got out, all that?"

"Of course not. It was just...you can't seriously think your brother somehow set that up."

"Oh I can. And Uriel could have done it. Gifted that way, as I said."

She didn't want to believe it. But unlike Lucifer's odd hypnotic gift, she'd heard of people with heightened pattern recognition. Autistic savants, geniuses. Individuals who saw patterns in things that no one else did. It wasn't actually too much of a stretch. Hard to believe, but not impossible.

She took a deep breath. "Okay. Say I believe you. What happened?"

"Well I confronted him, of course. That's when he revealed that he'd borrowed Azreal's blade." He hefted the blade in his hand. "Nasty thing it is. Doesn't just kill, but destroys the soul. Even angels can't come back from that."

"And?"

"I tried to talk him out of using it. But Uriel – well, we're a stubborn lot in my family. Probably why we have grudges that go back a few thousand years. Uriel declined my request to leave. And things got a bit heated, I'm afraid." Pain flared brighter in his eyes. "Brother Uriel and I had a bit of a scuffle, and Uriel wound up on the wrong end of the knife, as it were."

"You killed him."

All pretenses of amusement left Lucifer's face, replaced by a shadow of grief and rage that looked endless and terrible, that seemed to swallow him whole. "I did. Didn't have much choice. He was about to kill you, Detective."

She couldn't breathe. For once, she was absolutely sure that Lucifer was both telling the truth and not exaggerating at all. The look in his face told her that. "Oh God."

"Sorry Detective, don't think my Father's taking calls." The smile that curved his mouth had nothing of humor, only pain.

She swallowed hard. "What...what did..."

"Oh, I buried him. Somewhere I thought safe. With Azreal's blade. And it was fine, until Mum decided to try and get Dad's attention by starting a killing spree with the family property. Hired some insane human to dig up the blade. And coincidentally, my dear brother's grave. And then you showed me that video, and I realized the blade was loose, so I had to retrieve it."

"But you can't keep it. It's part of a murder investigation." Or several.

"Trust me Detective, you don't want this particular little toy in your precinct."

"Want it or not, I have to take it in. I get that it's your family's, and I will try to see that you get it back, but..."

"You misunderstand, Detective. You can't take it. Not unless you want your station to become another crime scene."

She blinked. He still seemed so sincere. "What do you mean?"

"Azreal's blade wants to be used. It's the blade of the Angel of Death, Detective. You humans can't handle the inherent power it possesses."

"Seriously? That's what you're going with. Lucifer..." She sighed. "Look, I get that you think you're the devil, and I guess your sister could be like an assassin or something, but you can't just use that mystical mumbo jumbo to..."

A snarl twisted Lucifer's face. He took three sharp strides, until he was right in her face. In one smooth movement he flipped the blade in his hand, grabbed her free hand with his own, and slapped it on the hilt.

Rage flooded through her, like someone had flipped a switch. Suddenly, all she could think of was how infuriating Lucifer was. Always spouting innuendo, always interfering in cases for his own gain. Always taking the credit and making everything all about himself. Endangering her, endangering Trixie. Blind hate flared, and in that moment, all she wanted to do was kill Lucifer, plunge the knife in her hand into his heart.

She tugged, but Lucifer tightened his grip. Blood leaked out of gouges to his palm as he wrapped his hand around the knife and pulled. With his stronger grip on the crossbar of the hilt and his greater strength, he easily wrenched the knife from her hand.

The rage vanished as if it had never been, leaving her dazed and shaken with the force of it. "What...what the hell..."

"That's what I meant, Detective. That mumbo jumbo you don't believe in, it's very real. Now, not being human, and being Azrael's brother has it's perks. I don't feel that homicidal urge you humans do. I have a bit of resistance, you could say."

She stared at him, at the blood dripping from his palm. "You're bleeding."

"Yes, that does happen around you, doesn't it?" He looked down at his palm. "But I trust you understand what I mean about the blade. Or do you need another demonstration?"

Another demonstration…she gulped. She wasn't sure she could handle feeling that black, unreasoning fury again. "No." She shook her head. "Okay." She breathed deep, trying to get her thoughts back under control. "Okay. Look, say I trust you and leave the blade here. Can you promise me it's not going to turn up at another crime scene?"

"My word of honor Detective."

She actually believed that. "Okay. But I'm trusting you, and if you screw me over, I promise, I will shoot you. Somewhere other than your leg."

"Of course. Feel free." He gave her another of those humorless smiles. "Anything else Detective?"

"Yeah." She swiped a strand of hair out of her eyes. "That thing with your brother..." She stopped.

She'd planned to ask him when it had happened. But looking into his eyes, she remembered. Remembered the week he'd ignored most of her calls. When he'd showed up to the crime scenes reeking of booze, drunk and moody and so out of focus that even Dan had worried. The case with the shooter where he'd actually dared the shooter to kill him, stood and presented a target while goading the man. "That's why."

"That's why what, Detective?" He already knew she'd put the pieces together, she could see it in his eyes. He wanted her to say it out loud.

"That's why you wanted that guy to shoot you. That's why you were so upset, those few weeks when you were all drunk and angry. When I told you to get help, and you wouldn't talk to me. It was because of your brother."

"If you mean it was because I was forced to kill my brother to save you and my Mum...well, yes, you're correct about that. Of course, you have to decide what to do about it now. Arrest me? Charge me?"

She should. She really should. He had killed someone. But…

But he had been defending her. She believed him when he said that. For all his occasional violence, for all that there was a dark and frankly terrifying side to him that she wasn't sure she could handle, he'd never been a killer. A punisher, a fighter, yes. But not a killer.

She could see it in his eyes, the pain, the guilt, the anguish. Clearly, he'd found some help, and perhaps a small measure of solace, somewhere. But the wound was still fresh and raw and bleeding under his careful mask of innuendo and black humor, and insolent cheerfulness. He hid it well, but he was hurting from what he'd been forced to do.

She shook her head and pulled her hand deliberately away from her gun. "I've no body, no crime scene, no weapon. Just your word. I couldn't get a conviction even if I tried. And...if you really did it to protect me..." She took a deep breath. "If you really did it to protect me, arresting you would be a poor way of thanking you."

Some of the tension relaxed out of his shoulders. "Glad you see it my way."

She nodded. Then looked at the blade in his hand. "I still need the murder weapon for that case."

Lucifer considered. "How about an identical replica? I know someone who would be able and willing to produce one. Clean, of course, but you can always argue that whoever removed it from the crime scene wiped it down. Or, something like that." He shrugged.

"Yeah. If I could just figure out how to get it back to evidence." She sighed. That was going to be the tricky part.

Lucifer offered her a smirk. "How about you let me worry about that, Detective. I assure you, it will be taken care of."

She stared at him for a moment, then sighed again. "You're going to hypnotize – or charm - your way past the evidence clerk and plant it, aren't you?" Lucifer opened his mouth, and she shook her head. "No. Don't tell me. I want plausible deniability. We officially did not have this conversation."

"If you like, Detective." He nodded agreeably.

"Just promise the knife that turns up will look like the right knife, and that there will be a plausible explanation for it's disappearance from the crime scene."

"Of course." His grin widened. "Haven't you heard Detective? The devil's in the details."

"Sure. Whatever. Just don't use this as another way to try and get in my pants, and we'll call it good." She glanced at a nearby clock. "It's late. I should get home to Trixie."

Lucifer made a face that she was sure was only partly honest. "As much as I'd love to detain you, Detective, I do have some business to attend to." He pulled a phone out of his pocket.

"Sure. Later." She turned and ducked into the elevator before he could turn her farewell into yet another innuendo filled comment. Only when she was safely downstairs and in her car did she allow herself to breathe a sigh and release the tension in her neck and back.

Of all the things she'd expected when she went up to chat with the owner of Lux, that hadn't been on the list. Some talking, some more allusions to his favorite delusion, some more innuendo and attempts to bed her. Maybe even some lighthearted teasing and friendly banter, which they'd shared more and more often of late.

Finding a missing murder weapon, discovering there was something in or on it that inspired violent aggression, and hearing Lucifer's confession hadn't been on her mind.

Speaking of Lucifer's confession...she swallowed hard, pulled out, and didn't let herself think about it until she was back home and had tucked Trixie into bed.

Lucifer's brother had been after her. She'd never even realized. Someone had been trying to kill her, and was so good she'd never noticed, and wouldn't have even if they'd succeeded. And Lucifer...Lucifer had killed that person, his own brother, his family, to save her.

As a cop, she knew she should arrest him. But as she'd noted before, there was no body, no evidence. Only his word. And besides, it could be argued as defense. Self defense, since he said they'd fought, or defense of his partner. He was a civilian consultant and tentative partner to the police force. Technically, that gave him no special privileges, but she and Dan, as well as several other cops, had given him extra leeway before. For interrogations, participation in operations. It could be argued as one more example...if anything came to light. Somehow, she doubted it ever would.

Besides...it had hurt him. She'd seen how badly it had hurt him. How it had driven him to near suicidal impulses. Obviously, he deeply regretted what he had done. What he had been forced to do. And that, even though he'd made it clear on numerous occasions that he had no fondness for the members of his family.

Lucifer had always said he punished people. And it was clear that punishing himself was no exception. What he'd done haunted him, that much was obvious. And from the look in his eyes and what he'd said about his family, it would probably haunt him for a long time to come. Much like some of the 'clean shoots' she'd had as an officer that she still regretted, including the time she'd shot him.

That was enough. It would have to be.

Still, as she dropped off to sleep, she couldn't help feeling that the knowledge would haunt her for a long time too. Along with the question of what else Lucifer might do to protect her. And what consequences it would have, for both of them.

_**Author's Note**__: Because...This story just got stuck in my head..._


End file.
